Securing the future of our data and technology

To succeed in today’s economy, companies need to become incredibly sophisticated organizations. They need to be non-hierarchical, highly productive and full of agile, flexible and proactive individuals working independently towards the objectives of the group.

Luckily, the growth of cloud adoption is enabling just that. 86% of organizations now have a cloud-first policy to empower workers across the business. In most cases, cloud-first results in multi-cloud approaches.

The rise of multi-cloud is creating complexity and critically, a whole host of security challenges. Multi-cloud means an organization’s potential attack surface is huge – and keeping on top of threats can require a lot of manpower.

Security teams need policies that will leave workers with the benefits of the cloud while keeping their data and business safe. Luckily, as we heard at Fujitsu Forum last November, innovative new technologies are helping us do just that.

The present-day perimeter

There’s no denying that enterprise security has become much more challenging in recent years, especially with the advent of the cloud. The cloud is, by definition, more internet-facing than traditional IT networks, so it immediately increases the attack surface of the organization.

Gone are the days when IT teams could create a strong perimeter around a trusted datacenter and network, shoring up the business with firewalls.

Now, cloud services are effectively the perimeter – which is even more problematic when users might be using web applications “unofficially”, through shadow IT. Similarly, users might access services through both work devices and personal devices, creating greater vulnerability.

In this varied landscape, it can be difficult for security teams to know how much responsibility to take for data in the cloud – and what lies with the cloud service provider.

And of course, all this is taking place in an environment where cybercriminals are more interested in business data than ever before – and there are hefty regulatory and reputational penalties for organizations that slip up.

No one technology can do everything and cybersecurity experts are in short supply: by 2022, it’s predicted that there will be a shortfall of two million cybersecurity professionals worldwide.

So how can organizations keep themselves safe?

Design, visibility, and context

During the session on avoiding a multicloud monster, Darren Gaile at Fujitsu shared several tips for creating a secure ecosystem:

Become secure by design

The current threat landscape is too complex for organizations to take a piecemeal approach, by simply patching up gaps or responding to individual threats. Instead, IT teams should focus on the root cause of security issues by creating a secure infrastructure from day zero. They need to protect their identity perimeter, create baseline cloud configurations and scan any open source code for vulnerabilities during development. In essence, become secure by design.

Know your landscape

The best cloud strategies are iterative, as organizations evolve their multicloud mix to keep up with changes in the business. It’s vital then for IT teams to keep a clear view of their attack surface. Tools like cloud security posture management will help IT teams to keep up with their threat profile as it evolves.

Take an intelligence-led approach

Every organizations’ threat profile is different; the biggest challenges for a multinational insurance provider will be very different to a midsized smart-factory. It’s thus crucial to understand the context of threats and where new ones might be coming from. Working with a managed service provider can provide live threat intelligence and insight into any security events that could impact the organization.

Security, SOAR-ted

Inevitably, organizations will continue to face threats. Human intervention will be critical for handling large volumes of alerts and rapid responses when needed.

Luckily, security professionals have another incredibly powerful tool at their disposal to assess and prioritize threats: Security, Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) technologies are designed to simplify the incident response process.

The system brings together disparate technologies and incident handling processes into a coordinated set of security actions and operational processes. Thanks to machine learning, SOAR can appropriately prioritize the most important threats for analysts to deal with.

This automated incident handling reduces alert fatigue and frees up Security Operations Center staff to deal with more complex and rewarding analytical work. Importantly, the Mean Time to Respond is decreased, ensuring that the business can reduce the impact of attacks. Watch Steve Pye share more about the benefits of SOAR at Fujitsu Forum:

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A secure future

Organizations are changing – and technology is enabling whole new behaviors and capabilities. It’s vital that organizations enable this new age of agility and dexterity, while still ensuring they keep their data and systems, safe. With the right mix of a human-centric approach along with the very latest technology, security teams can keep their organizations safe…